NATIONAL HARBOR, MD - The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) awarded Maria Baldini-Potermin, founder of the Chicago-based firm Maria Baldini-Potermin & Associates, PC, with the 2010 Edith Lowenstein Memorial Award for excellence in advancing the practice of immigration law. She will receive the award on July 3, 2010 during AILA's Annual Conference held in National Harbor, MD.

For two decades, Maria Baldini-Potermin has aggressively, relentlessly and compassionately defended the rights of noncitizens, advancing the practice of immigration law through litigation, scholarship, mentoring, and community outreach. Baldini-Potermin has consistently taken on the most challenging cases, managing to carve out solutions for complex Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) cases, criminal issues and ineffective assistance of counsel claims.

Baldini-Potermin is passionate about providing the tools needed by both the immigration and criminal defense bars to protect the rights of noncitizens, writing extensively on the intersection of state criminal law and immigration law, including guides covering no less than four states (Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin). She also regularly provides training to the criminal defense bar, including state public defenders offices.

She has been recognized as a mentor by the AILA Chicago Chapter, ProBAR, and the Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, and she regularly trains newer practitioners in the area of removal defense. Baldini-Potermin is also the author of The Immigration Trial Handbook, and serves as an expert author-consultant for Interpreter Releases, both published by Thompson West.

Baldini-Potermin was selected in 2009 to serve on the Board of Directors of the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild. She has served on and chaired several national and local AILA committees and regularly speaks at conferences about immigration law. She graduated cum laude from the University of Minnesota Law School and served as an adjunct clinical professor in the Immigration Law Clinic from 1997 to 1999.

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The American Immigration Lawyers Association is the national association of immigration lawyers established to promote justice, advocate for fair and reasonable immigration law and policy, advance the quality of immigration and nationality law and practice, and enhance the professional development of its members.